​Greek 'political blackmail' of EU won't work anymore, says top Merkel party member

A protester shouts at police officers during a rally against austerity measures in the city of Thessaloniki September 6, 2014. (Reuters/Alkis Konstantinidis) / Reuters

With the possibility of a leftist anti-austerity party dominating Greek elections later this month, a high-ranking member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party has said Greece could no longer “blackmail” the EU.

Michael Fuchs, an MP for Merkel's Christian Democrats, issued a
warning to Greek voters – increasingly attracted by the radical
leftist party Syriza that has pledged to restructure economic
reform and end austerity measures – when he said the
“troika” [the International Monetary Fund, EU and
European Central Bank] may be forced to forego future rescue
loans.

"If Alexis Tsipras of the Greek left party Syriza thinks he
can cut back the reform efforts and austerity measures, then the
troika will have to cut back the credits for Greece," Fuchs
said in an interview with Rheinische Post newspaper published
Wednesday.

Fuchs said the 28-member EU and its core eurozone countries would
no longer be pressured into saving the Greek economy from either
collapse or exiting the EU altogether.

"The times where we had to rescue Greece are over. There is
no potential for political blackmail anymore. Greece is no longer
of systemic importance for the euro."

Syriza, capitalizing on a wave of public discontent with harsh
austerity measures that Athens was forced to accept in return for
a 240 billion euro bailout, has grabbed a 3 percent lead on Prime
Minister Antonis Samaras’ right-wing New Democracy.

Spending cuts in Greece are responsible for some 500 male suicides, according to an April study
entitled “The Impact of Fiscal Austerity on Suicide: On the
Empirics of a Modern Greek Tragedy,” which was published in the
Social Science and Medicine journal.

“Suicide rates in Greece (and other European countries) have
been on a remarkable upward trend following the global recession
of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis of 2009,”
states the study’s abstract.

Each percentage point decrease in government spending resulted in
a 0.43 percent rise in suicides among men, it revealed. Between
2009 and 2010, there were 551 deaths that occurred “solely
because of fiscal austerity,” the study found.

2010-2013: 7.500 more dead and 20.600 less births. Genocide in
Greece thanks to troika. Berlin is proud of its Nazi methods
against Greek.

At the same time, employee salaries were slashed after February
2012 by 22 percent for workers over the age of 25, and a
staggering 32 percent for those under 25, according to a separate report by the International
Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). Meanwhile, doctors were
forced to refuse to treat patients and delay operations due to
cuts to the health service.

Syriza, an EU-skeptic party, has witnessed a surge in popularity
after pledging to cancel at least half of the bailout loan, which
it says places Greece in a “debtors’ prison” to the EU
and financial institutions.

At the same time, however, the troika of lenders has demanded
that Greece adhere to the agreed austerity program to qualify for
any future bailouts – precisely what the party wants the country
to avoid.

PM Samaras rattled markets Tuesday when he warned that Greece may
be forced to exit the eurozone if Syriza emerges victorious in
the elections.

"Greece is no longer of systemic importance for the euro." -
Germany's Michael Fuchs

Hans-Werner Sinn, head of Germany's Ifo economic research
institute, said a Greek exit from the euro zone remained a
possibility.

"Further debt cuts will be needed again and again, unless the
country is released from the euro zone and allowed to regain its
competitiveness by devaluation," Sinn told the German daily
Tagesspiegel.

On Monday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble put the
issue more bluntly when he said the cash-strapped EU member has
“no alternative" but to adhere to the reform measures it agreed
to in return for the unpopular rescue package.

Despite its tough warnings, the IMF admitted in its 2013 Ex Post Evaluation to
mistakes in its handling of the Greek crisis, for example,
acknowledging that “little progress was made in checking tax
evasion by high income earners,” while average citizens were
left holding the bill for the massive bailout.